Mental Illness and Psychiatry

Abstract

This book unashamedly gives primacy to those who have experienced severe or acute periods of mental ill health. The narratives from these users will offer new insights into illness and recovery. Over 30 years ago, Mosher et al. (1975: 455–6) asked the rhetorical question, ‘who can tell us better how to get over the illness than its recovered victims?’ It was not the first time — nor the last — that the suggestion was made for the centrality of the voice of the user in understanding mental illness. Yet in 2007, this book is one of the first to comprehensively investigate user narratives without the interception of medical or psychological interpretation. This begs the question as to why it has taken us so long to get to this position. Why has the voice of the service user been marginalized? To answer this question it is necessary to briefly survey the history of madness, the development of the mental health field as a medical project and the rise of psychiatry as the profession chiefly responsible for the care and treatment of the mentally ill. It will be shown that psychiatry is not only a medical project but also a political one. Despite conflicting views on the definition and nature of mental illness within the profession — leading to a variety of treatment options — medical intervention continues unabated, encouraged by the pharmaceutical industry.KeywordsMental HealthMental IllnessMental Health ProblemNational Health ServiceMedical ModelThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.